Debate Scene from “The Candidate”

Here’s the debate scene from the best movie about an election ever, THE CANDIDATE, from 1972.

As the clip shows, it’s much, much easier to be the challenger. Think about this. In all the debate cycles since 1960 — 10 of them — the candidate of the party NOT in power came out of the debates having scored points eight times: Kennedy over Nixon, Carter over Ford, Reagan over Carter, Mondale over Reagan, Clinton over Bush Sr., Bush 2 over Gore, Kerry over Bush 2, and Obama over McCain.

The only exceptions were 88 and 96. In 96, Clinton did better than Dole. And in 1988, Bush came out ahead of his encounter with Dukakis, though largely on the basis of Dukakis’s Spockian answer to a very personal question.

The most curious examples of the above are those of Carter, Reagan and Bush 2. But Reagan especially: Reagan in 1984 went into the debates with a huge lead, with the legend at his back at having beaten Carter in the 1980 debate, and with the economy booming. Mondale still came out better.

It’s just very hard playing defense, even in a good economy.

The other thing that the above list shows is that debates usually don’t matter. But only usually.